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The excellent student run newspaper, The Michigan Daily, has an article about the necessity of regulating Bitcoin. "Mining" even a single Bitcoin now burns as much electricity as a family would use during about 50 days.
Local grids physically cannot withstand this outrageous consumption of electricity. In foreign countries — where mining farm clustering is more severe — local governments suspect Bitcoin mining farms as the cause of power outages and complete blackouts. Entire neighborhoods are facing power shortages or complete outages as a result of energy grid strain. So far, the reliance on domestic energy has not had adverse effects, but it is only a matter of time before these blackouts begin to take place in the United States, too.
Despite the fatal externality flaws in Bitcoin mining, the industry is left unchecked in the absence of federal or international regulation on its use. Unfortunately, without restrictions on the amount of mining that can occur, there is no clear plateau to the electricity consumption of these constantly updating hardware systems.
Previously:
(2025) Bitcoin Mining is Making People Sick
(2025) The Guy Who Accidentally Threw Away $700 Million in Bitcoin Wants to Buy the Landfill to Find It
(2024) How A 27-Year-Old Busted The Myth Of Bitcoin's Anonymity
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday December 01, @07:41PM
Why would they ever return anything in the first place? Laws.
My point is that taxation thrashing imposes costs on taxpayers especially under your punitive taxation scheme. Suppose someone starts with $50 million and does an edgy trade that temporarily values their assets at $200 million. As part of their continued brilliance, they end up back at $50 million after the drama is over. With that 90% tax rate on assets over $100 million, they now owe Uncle Sam $90 million. Even if the taxman chooses to be generous and not immediately seizing assets and pushing them into bankruptcy court, that's several million in interest and penalties they'll owe.